Ouch My Thumb!

Going to start another section to my blog and is is “my stupid magic stories”. These will be stories I have of things that happened to me because of doing magic, things that happened during my shows, at magic conventions etc. I hope you will find some of the storie interesting!
The first story I would like to share happened when I was 15 in the December of 1990. This was during the height of my Christmas shows and this year was really the first year for me to have a large amount shows where I made a lot of money. I remember well that for this Christmas season I had bought myself a nice stylish tuxedo like suit with a shirt with some cheesy frills.  It was in a style that was hip for 1990. Anyways, it was a family Christmas show for a kind of boat club if I remember right. As I was 15 I could not drive yet so my mother was my driver and was at the show. The show stared well but the problem came when I did the cut and restored rope. You can probably smell what is coming. Anyway I started the routine in my regular way as I was taught by Tony Eng at that time and there is a sequence where a member of the audience cuts the rope. So I had this about 8 year old boy come on stage and cut the rope. I even did all the cheesy lines of “don’t cut the pink cut the white, the pink’s my finger” etc. Well the kid cut the rope and at the same time he did cut through my thumb. At first I thought it was just a scrape. I sent the kid back dipped behind my table and sucked the blood off and all seemed fine. I quickly finished the rope trick and moved on to the next effect which was the magic colouring book. This is where things got worse. I realized when I riffled through the colouring book that there was red all over the pages, well that red was you guessed it my blood. At this time audience members also noticed that I was bleeding very badly. A nice lady came running up with a band-aid and I patched up my thumb and went on with the show. After the show when I got home I was heart broken as my frilly shirt sleeve was covered in blood and I was never to use it again. And here is the kicker to this story the next day I was helping Julie Eng with her Christmas shows as her assistant at one of the shows the kid that cut my finger was there!!!! It was like he was he was coming back for seconds. Anyways when you perform a cut and restored rope effect be careful or if you are an audience member asked to cut a magicians rope be careful! I am lucky I didn’t need any stitched but my left thumb still bears the scar.
I hope you enjoyed the first of my stupid magic stories.

Aaron

Walking

Recently I have been talking random walks around the city I live in. Now I have done a lot of walking in my life but I have never really just went for a walk with no goal of arriving somewhere, just walking around and enjoying the area. Sure I have gone for walks through parks etc. but the walks I take now I just walk around the city enjoying the city. This is something I wish I had started doing years ago. I have found it very relaxing and gives me undistracted thinking time. I have also found a new appreciation for the city I live in. One thing I enjoy doing on these walks is taking picture using instagram and posting them as I go. Can’t wait for my next walk!
Aaron

Aaron

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Street Festival Magic In Takamatsu

If you have been following my blog, and I am not really sure how many regular readers I have if any at all, you will have noticed I have have been blogging about magic basics, books etc. Well because I a have been going back and reading old books again and thinking in different ways about magic there seems to be a magic renaissance going on in my head. What do I mean by this? Well because I have been going back to basics recently many things I read and learned when I was younger have suddenly all started coming back to me. However they are not coming back to me in the form they did when I first learned them. They are coming back different and it has started my brain to think different about the magic I perform. It also has changed my magic taste as well. My performing style seems to be staying the same but my technique and the way I have worked out routining has changed a lot in the last little while. I have moved into having more engagement with my audiences as well have been working deeper to apply magic theories in terms of misdirection, timing, and audience management. It has also caused me to edit my performances and cut unnecessary performance parts, techniques and props. I am not sure where this is leading me but I see a new light and I am excited. It is like when I started magic for the first time again, but this time with the experience and knowledge and how to apply the knowledge. It is going to be a fun ride! Have you had a magic renaissance in your head?

Aaron

Coins!

Recently I have started reading some of the old basic magic books I haven’t read since I was young again. These books are the basics of stage and close-up magic. After looking through these again I have started to re-read them in more detail relearning all the basics of magic once again. Going through these books again after years of doing magic, I feel I have a new perspective on what they teach. My attitude towards what I need to learn and improve on is much more mature now that 20 years ago. Even though I remember many of the techniques I read in these books and use many of them today, re-reading them has given me greater insight into how to make them even more effective and find points I missed when I read them the first time. For me the old has become new again. I find myself as I read them again thinking of new applications and the creative side of my brain is once again stimulated. I am glad that a few weeks ago that I started looking though these or I would not have started to read them once again. My goal over the next couple of months is to try to re-read as much as a can from the classic texts of magic and digest them and start to really apply them in new ways to my current routines and I am sure I will start to work out new and even better routines over the next year or so. So I suggest if you are starting to feel stale with your magic and are tired of many of the newer products, go back and re-read the classics. Your brain will start to awaken.

Aaron

Talking Magic

If you perform magic then the chances are you will have to speak in front of a lot of people unless you perform only a silent act to music. When performing and speaking it is important that you speak well. What you say has to be clearly said and understandable. I have seen many great technical magicians but their speaking is too quite and no one can  hear what they say. As a performer you need to practice speaking and work on you volume, cadence, diction, intonation etc. If you do have a problem with this I suggest seeking advice from other performers or look into attending a speech club. Watch TV news anchors, comedians, and other people on TV and radio and listen how they speak. Try to work to make your voice clear. On way I practice is by recording only my voice. This way I can listen to what I am saying and what I need to fix. I tend to speak clear but way too fast so it is always a battle for me. Now that I perform in Japanese I am always working on my pronunciation and how I sound. This has made me more sensitive to how I speak in English as well. Anyways work on a clear voice and make sure your audience can hear you it one of the most important things for performing magic.

Aaron

Burn!

After a long time I finally have some free time. And I am making the most of it instead of being lazy. I have been using the time to rework parts of my show and spend the proper time doing so. Also I have been able to talk with some magician friends online about magic and even found a great new effect and routine for my show which I love! I have spent a great amount of time working on that routine in the past few days and started working on the Japanese script for it. The routine shall remain a secret but thanks to my friend Steve Dickson for the suggestion.

Later tonight I will enjoy Mr. Maric a Japanese Magician who will be performing and doing a seminar online. I am looking forward to that.

I have a lot magic plans during my break so stayed tuned to updates as I post about them! And I hope all of you are enjoying your summer it’s almost over!

Aaron